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Social Work

A Practice Framework for Child Protective Services

Social Work is an extremely broad and encompassing field of practice. For those of us engaged in the profession, communities, neighborhood, families and other such contained contexts will serve as the framework for programs, practices and personnel dispatched to improve lives. Often, this improvement must come through the highly difficult engagement of dysfunction. This is a focus of our practice framework, which is driven by the understanding that in certain socioeconomic, cultural and geographical settings, children may be at a much higher risk for experiencing the brunt of this dysfunction. This may take the form of physical abuse, exposure to domestic violence, neglect or simply the maintenance of a home which is unfit for child inhabitation. These are concerns that drive the practice framework for child protective services under the social work umbrella. Drawing its cues from the Department for Child Protection (DCP), a practice framework must simultaneously adhere to regulatory considerations and navigate through practical challenges. Accordingly, the framework provided here below will center on the theoretical, practical, ethical, social and organizational implications of providing such services.

Theory and method:

As noted above, the over-arching influence on our practice framework is that provided by the Department for Child Protection. Here, we are provided with the primary definition of child protective services from a social work standpoint. According to the DCP (2010), "the Department's major focus is on meeting the needs of vulnerable children and families. It is responsible for protecting and caring for children, and supporting people at risk of crisis." (p. 1) This drives the theoretical aim of our practice, with intends to create paths for intervention in the face of several distinct dangers, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect of children.

In light of recent reforms undergone by the DCP, there are increasingly more directions that a child, or another concerned party, can turn for assistance. However, a negative history of child social services in Australia has imposed considerable difficulty upon these outreach avenues. Indeed, a study by Stanley et al. (2001) demonstrates that there remains a great deal of uncertainty and consistency even on the part of social work professionals as to the appropriate practice methods. Here, my practice would refer to both the Ford Report which emerged in 2007 and had a great impact on the understanding throughout Australia of a need for improved child protective services; and to the article by Stanley et al. which promotes the need for structural change in this area. Accordingly, Stanley et al. indicate that community professionals "require support to make decisions about abuse. Information about what they should consider to be abuse is imperative. Knowledge about the way the child protection system works will also assist in raising their confidence about identifying and reporting cases of child abuse. Clearer guidelines would also benefit the child by facilitating his or her referral directly to an agency to receive intervention in situations where the DHS does not view the child as an appropriate referral." (p. 1)

It is our theory that by engaging the community on a more active and positive level, by achieving a presence at family gatherings and by working to bring lifestyle improvements to at-risk families, we can help to facilitate greater communication and trust in the community. Combining this with more lucid standards on what defines abuse for such community agents which will interact with the DHC, DCP and other such agencies with a public awareness raising role in the community may be a first step in identifying situations calling for investigation and intervention.

The existence of human service professionals shares a reciprocal relationship with public awareness. Such is to say that the greater acceptance of reality and an imperative on the discussion thereof has prompted the need for more and better trained professionals in this field. Likewise, the professionals in this field must have increased public understanding of what is meant by neglect, emotional abuse, physical abuse and sexual abuse while opening the doors for assistance and treatment. Today, while a regrettable number of violations slip under the radar screen, our practice model will focus on better positive engagement with the community by achieving a greater presence in such contexts as community picnics, regular family activities, daycare services, job placement agencies and public recreation days. These may all be regarded as preventative measures while simultaneously creating an open-door relationship such that members of the community can report abuse when they detect it.

As a human services professional, I would suggest the need for an altogether more pervasive institutional resource. One such crucial weapon, now being brandished with broad-based success in other contexts, is the 24-hour abuse hotline. This type of establishment creates a crucial centrality to the influx of reports on this type of crime. Thus, it is not simply law-enforcement that fields the contentions of concerned neighbors and frightened spouses. This is important because police officers are usually ill-equipped to address the emotional and social complications of sexual molestation. Hotlines channel all allegations through a central organization that can, with a trained eye, assess the validity and specificity of claims. Moreover, in conjunction with applied human services professionals, they can assign case-workers to take on individual cases.

While the hotline, which relies heavily on anonymous allegation, creates the potential for accusatory dishonesty, the deconstruction of bureaucratic obstacles takes into heavy ethical consideration the need for a reliable system of case assessment. The community-orientation of human services such as ours provides the greatest potential for even-handed and accurate consideration of individual cases.

Skills:

Perhaps the most important stride that human service professionals are taking right now in modestly progressive steps, is toward greater education on the topic. Without a broader societal awareness of the realities of neglect, or emotional, physical and sexual abuse, many cases may go undetected or untreated. In addition, those who are exposed peripherally to this type of abuse may be insufficiently educated to note the indications that such a thing may be happening. Or, even when said parties aware that this type of abuse is transpiring, they may not endowed with the capacity to employ an intervening force. Human services is most vital in demonstrating to the public that there is a force with the discretion and authority to help.

Therefore, are agency would focus on Community Engagement skills to accompany the streamlining of reporting and investigation procedures. The true value in developing interpersonal and event-planning skills that can bring the community together around positive activities is the degree to which this opens the doors of at-risk households. For instance, the ECA (2006) tells that an "AIHW Report revealed an over-representation of sole-parent families in substantiated abuse cases. Sole parents are more likely to have low incomes or be financially stressed; be socially isolated; or have less support from their immediate family. These are all factors that have been associated with child abuse and neglect. 'Even simple things that we all can do make a difference,' explains Blakester [Executive Officer of the NAPCAN Foundation]. 'Cooking and sharing a meal with a sole parent family can help reduce stress and isolation, while creating a friendlier community too.'" (ECA, p. 1)

This is a core imperative driving the training of professionals in our practice. Moreover, those selected for key roles in the agency will be drawn from the community itself, helping to promote the sense that this mode of engagement is a primary prerogative for improving the lives of children. This should be seen as a counterpoint to the fear of many members at-risk communities that child protective services aim to disrupt families and remand children to dangerous state facilities.

Value base, ethical stance or ideological base:

Indeed, it should be understood that for any public agency offering promises to at-risk communities of a helping-hand, there are many obstacles to overcome in gaining trust and acceptance. This is because the services identified as protective in Australia's history have instead represented a great evil to many Australians, and particularly to the Aboriginal communities that remain today disproportionately represented among at-risk families and children. The ethical scandals of Australia's state child care facilities of previous decades were recently returned to the headlines with the former-Rudd Administration issued a formal apology for a state policy in which thousands of Aboriginal children were removed from their homes and placed in state care. The policy was part of a racialist agenda designed to assimilate future Aboriginal generations. Instead, it subjected these children to abduction, detention and a litany of sexual and physical abuses. (BBC News, p. 1)

Accordingly, BBC News (2009) would report that "some 500,000 'forgotten Australians' were abused or neglected in orphanages and children's homes from 1930 to 1970. Mr. Rudd's speech comes after his formal apology last year to Australia's Aboriginal community, especially the Stolen Generation." (BBC News, 1) This state-committed violation of human rights imposes an ideological challenge upon community organizations such as ourselves to work aggressively to find ways to keep families intact as a first priority. This drives a value system that makes our work preventative by one intent. With a clear understanding that some intervention will require a removal of the child from his or her parents' care, the value of family togetherness will direct the strategy of community involvement on the part of the agency.

Specialised knowledge:

The practice framework is guided by specialized knowledge on the patterns and trends dominating the landscape of abuse cases. The breakdown of major abuse categories reported by Bromfield & Horsfall finds that 39% of abuse cases are of the emotional abuse category, 29% in the category of neglect, 22% in the category of physical abuse and 10% in the category of sexual abuse. (p. 3)

Moreover, a major thrust of the report by Bromfield & Horsfall is that reports of all types of cases are on the rise, but also attributes this to certain realities including the heightened visibility of protective services and agencies. Such is to say that more reports are not inherently indicative of higher rates of abuse and neglect of children but indicates that more reports are being filed. This may be an indicator of improvement in the efforts of said services. Additionally, the report by Bromfield & Horsfall implicates certain categorical and legislative conditions as pertinent to this higher rate. They note that "the maltreatment types most commonly substantiated across Australia were emotional abuse and child neglect (see Figure 2). Emotionally abusive behaviours include verbally abusing, terrorising, scape goating, isolating, rejecting, and ignoring. Children who witness domestic violence are also typically categorised as having experienced emotional abuse. The high proportion of substantiations of emotional abuse is a relatively new phenomenon (AIHW, 2010). The inclusion of children who have witnessed domestic violence is likely to be one of the key reasons for the high rates of substantiated emotional abuse" (Bromfield & Horsfall, p. 3)

Impacts of the social and political context:

The political and social dimensions of social work are particularly challenging in the present economic climate. Following a decade of recession and resource misappropriate by the former Howard Administration, many child welfare related services and facilities are working through dire straits. So would report the headline-making Ford Report, which roundly criticized the functionality of Australia's child protective services agencies and the roles which they have claimed to serve. Ford (2007) would report that "the very background, which led to the commissioning of this Review, is evidence that this system is not working in Western Australia, particularly for vulnerable children. It hasn't worked for some years. The community has lost confidence in the government's ability to identify and support vulnerable children and their families. Additional resources are needed but, on their own, additional resources will not solve the problem." (Ford, 45)

This is a conditional context which I anticipate in my own practice, working both to possess the rarified resources to meet our basic objectives and to regain this confidence in this the community. While many of the programs enacted by the previous administrations are premised on the notion of supply-side economics, wherein assistance to corporate standard-bearers would incite a trickle-down effect of pervasive affluence, such was not yielded by major indicators, all of which point to the escalating problem of poverty in all living sectors of the country. A retrospective of Australia's contention with its ongoing poverty problems illustrates that the top-down methodology advocated by the previous administration and many of its fiscally conservative forebears should perhaps be realigned with a greater consideration of the root causes of poverty. Ford would report that "Australia has benefited significantly from economic growth fuelled by the resources boom. This has created jobs and prosperity but has also brought its own pressures. There has been significant investment in physical infrastructure but rapid population growth has put strain on the social infrastructure. The benefits of the recent economic growth have not been distributed evenly and some communities remain disadvantaged." (Ford, p. 46)

The more effective and ideologically sound models of contending with poverty suggest that the impoverished are victims of a socially enforced cycle wherein lower classes are systematically subjected to a variety of restraints in breaking free from a spiral of poverty, ignorance, sickness and crime. A proper investment by the state in the needs of our impoverished youth has been demonstrated to produce positive results as such youths enter into society and the professional world.

In spite of a clear precedent and understanding to this end, reigning political parties have continually sacrificed the funding needed to sustain the effective function of such child welfare agencies as orphanages, juvenile correctional facilities, halfway houses and social service intervention groups in favor of politically motivated tax cuts. This would prove an ironic and circularly flawed logic, coming down on many child welfare agencies with a double impact of neglect and the transfer of wealth away from social programming.